This was a second semester project during my first year at Robert Gordons University. The brief was to design a house with a studio for an artist. The project's site was the picturesque walled gardens of Seaton park which is situated in the north of Aberdeen. I learned how a residential building might be integrated into a workspace.

I first conducted a detailed examination of the walled gardens of Seaton park and established an understanding of what constituted the place. The walled gardens had previously been vegetable plots and changed as the area became a public park. I surveyed a lot of artists in relation to what they felt was most important in a house, studio and what they enjoyed in built spaces.

I made a series of models exploring texture, volume and distance. The purpose of this was to generate an abstracted idea of how spaces interacted. I could then adapt the information to what I had gathered in my surveys with artists and examination of Seaton park.

I wanted to explore geometry more and see what possibilities it offered. The work of Neil Gillespie was particularly important at this stage of the design, his Harris House and Maggie Centre projects were two precedents I looked at.

Sketching helped me further this project. I rapidly worked through lots of iterations. The best spaces and forms began to become clearer.

Quickly sketched cardboard models helped me further this process. I was also able to think better about the landscape and how best it might work with the new building. An idea of how to reconcile the public and private spaces in the project started to take shape. The project was a private residence in a public space and for this reason it was important to manage the openings in the building as well as how it sat in the walled garden.

I made more detailed models with a particular focus on the changing gardens landscape. At the time I was surveying the site, the gardens were in a state of disrepair. There was no particular attention paid to the planting and over half the area was fallow. This offered a lot of maneuverability within the design of the gardens.

More models of various proposals helped me see what worked and what didn’t.

When I had a good idea of what I needed from the design and form, I made a large scale model that would allow me to explore light. This was the most important thing to explore and incorporate in the design, according to artists I had surveyed.

I started to make the drawing that would best show and explain the project.

I edited and compiled my work to prepare it for my final presentation.

I worked on my 3D printing skills and started to further my design software knowledge.

It was interesting to be introduced to the ideas of public and private space and explore the interplay between the two. I tried to make a design that would benefit both the user and the observer.